Almost every head of every major bank that failed made HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars in the years leading up to their banks/corporations total failure/government tax-payer bailout.
How much do we pay the noble soldiers who gives their lives and in many cases their mental health for the American Dream?
$30,000 ish a year?
My Godfather/Uncle Butch was in Vietnam for two tours, he was a tunnel rat who endured more than any man ever should. He has had health problems his whole life, he's gotten very little support from the government, and it doesn't look like a fair deal to me at all.
How can we say it's OK for people to make hundreds of millions failing, but pay the soldiers who pay the highest prices for the failings of our government?
JK Rowling makes a Billion? Cool. She deserves it.
Bill Gates makes a Billion? Cool. I know a lot of people who use windows. Makes sense.
....but when i look at the list of American Billionaires, most made their money in Energy (oil/electricity), Health Care/Drugs, and Real Estate.
Things people need.
We have to stop allowing people to gain ungodly wealth without creating or developing something that people benefit from.
#1 - Warren Buffett - $62 billion. the Richest Man in the world. What did he EVER do to deserve that? A good investor? At the moment, that seems like a bit of a dubious distinction, while millions of retires watch 2.5 trillion dollars evaporate from their retirement fund, do they say 'I should have spent my last 40 years being an investor, INSTEAD of wasting my life being a 2nd grade teacher?" I wonder if Mr. Buffett has ever had access to inside information?
#2 - Carlos Helu - $60 Billion - Telecom. He didn't invent the phone. He didn't invent wireless. awesome.
#4 - Lakshmi Mittal - $45 billion - Inherited a family steel empire. Workers in some of his factories make under $2 an hour.
#5 - Mukesh Ambani - $43 Billion - Inherited a petro-chemical company. Made 22.9 BILLION last year. I'd say making over a billion a month is a damn good year. Lives in a 27 story house.
#6 - Anil Ambani - $42 Billion - Inherited. Petrochemical/Telecom- MADE 23 BILLION LAST YEAR. doesnt like his brother.
#8 - KP Singh - $30 Billion. Real Estate. Made $20 Billion dollars last year. Must be nice to make that much dough off the ownership of Earth.
#19 - Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud - $21 Billion! - Investor - Owns a large portion of Citigroup and NewsCorp! Awesome, so when we Bailed out BearStearns with $50 Billion and Citigroup bought them for pennies on the dollar, good to know this dude got richer. Saudi Arabians are AWESOME on civil rights. "The United States and Saudi Arabia have enjoyed an excellent business relationship." You tell them Prince! Good to know one of FoxNews biggest investors is a Saudi Prince!
Awesome.
Like Pat Robertson says "Money is not evil!"
Maybe Americans should stop joining the armed services and get into the telecom/oil/casino/investment business.
Posts: 377 | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:OCTOBER 7--Days after federal officials agreed to an $85 billion bailout of American International Group, the insurance firm spent more than $440,000 for a corporate retreat at a swanky California resort. An invoice from the week-long getaway, a copy of which you'll find below, was obtained by the congressional panel that has been holding hearings this week about Wall Street collapses and executive excess. The late-September AIG gathering at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach cost $443,343, according to the invoice. The six-figure sum covered hotel rooms, banquets, golf fees, and spa services at the resort south of Los Angeles.
posted
Woot. 2 AIG Execs spent $450,000 of company money on a week long vacation AFTER the $85 Billion dollar bailout.
Also, these 2 reassured investors time and time again the Company was solid and profitable, MONTHS after they were getting nothing but HORRIBLE reports on the companies future, up to the collapse.
Criminals? Nah. This is amerika fool.
Posts: 377 | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:We have to stop allowing people to gain ungodly wealth without creating or developing something that people benefit from.
Without the banking system, the government would have no effective mechanism to pay soldiers and the soldiers would have nothing to do with their pay once they got it, other than spend it immediately or hide it under a mat. Without the banking system, there would be no technology or weaponry to protect the soldiers in combat, because the research, design, and production of such things are facilitated by investors. Without the banking system, we would be unable to raise the money needed to afford an army or borrow the money needed to fight a war.
The finance industry DOES produce something that we all benefit from: It produces instruments that distribute resources from people who don't need them to people who can use them productively. In doing so, it vastly multiplies our productivity - so much so that it dwarfs even the highest salaries.
If you don't believe it, consider how our productivity has been impacted just by the recent slowdown in bank lending. Now imagine how much worse it would be if banks simply disappeared altogether, and nobody could cash checks, nobody could invest in anything, nobody could use credit cards or borrow anything from anyone...
The problem here is not that people are getting paid too much to do something unimportant. Rather, the problem is that running the finance industry IS important - too important for the folks at the helm to be taking the risks that they did.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
It was your rant abut Buffet that reinforced the fact that you have no clue about this.
Not that I needed it....it was pretty obvious.
Buffet has solid investments now because he didn't approve of a lot of the risky BS other companies were pulling. He had warned about a collapse for at least 4 years now, specifically a housing crisis, but no one did anything.
Why don't we take the little bit that YOU earn away from you, because you have failed to prove you deserve it. You can't follow though on promises of greatness, not even in a mediocre fashion, but we are suppose to trust your opinion on world politics and finance?
Talk is cheap. Anyone else who MUST have cheated (just because they are successful)? Don't hold back, and don;t concern yourself with facts either.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Buffet has solid investments now because he didn't approve of a lot of the risky BS other companies were pulling. He had warned about a collapse for at least 4 years now, specifically a housing crisis, but no one did anything.
Not to mention charitable donations. He's given away more money than #8 on that little list.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I ran a case in parliamentary debate this weekend about how groups raising money for the Darfur genocide would be better off spending their money to hire PMCs to defend the villages. I got excited when I read the thread title.
It's pretty apparent that if a CEO can make billions of dollars off of what is essentially criminal activity then some changes need to be made to the system in order to ensure that there are consequences to this kind of activity that actually effect them. Not fines, or convictions that don't lead to jail time or even cushy white collar prison. *Flips through medieval torture device book.* I've got a few ideas.
Posts: 959 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Why don't we take the little bit that YOU earn away from you, because you have failed to prove you deserve it. You can't follow though on promises of greatness, not even in a mediocre fashion, but we are suppose to trust your opinion on world politics and finance?
Five years ago, I predicted one of the "beasts" spoken of in Revelations was The Stock Market.
Two years ago, I said the Economy was head to grind to a halt.
In June, I told all my friends and family, who are worth millions, to sell their stocks. It's all gonna crash.
My uncle who was the #4 guy at Hewlett-Packard for over 10 years, did exactly that. No one else listened.
About my in ability to produce greatness, that sir, is in the eye of the beholder. There aren't many people I know who've had a better life than I.
I've lived about 7 lives in this one.
My never really having a ton of dough or things is the factor that allowed me to live the life of a poet, a lover and a dreamer.
I wouldn't trade my life with anyone, anywhere.
Why don't we take the little bit that I earn cuz I don't deserve it?
Impossible. I don't earn anything.
I am a student.
You could try but there is a certain comfort to having six big dogs that love me, and living on a Ranch that has a rifle or gun somewhere in almost every room.
You missed my point about Buffett.
He became the RICHEST MAN in the world by investing.
He didn't invent anything, he didn't improve anything, he's a money magician. Put a dollar under this nutshell, spin em, and look! That dollar is now a $100 dollars! And he didn't even have to spin the nutshell.
It would be wise to have some type of SHARE and LIVE attitudes through out our 10 BILLION people world.
And, it would be VERY wise to figure out how to provide a working world for people first, instead of a GET AS RICH AS YOU CAN nation.
I keep saying. If people keep using Christianity and Jesus to prop up and defend our "Kapitalism" we're gonna see all 6 levels of hell here on Earth.
The Stock Market has lost 8.9 TRILLION dollars of people's time. How much Time can you buy for 8.9 trillion?
I do know you can't buy any time back.
The CEO'S who made about $500 million while their companies collapsed and they ASSURED people everything was great, are criminals.
Obviously American Law sides with you Kwea.
This world cannot survive without the Stock Market. it is why the dinosaurs died. The stock market is like the god of earth. see it swing its tail.
tears fall with cities
It's why the dinosaurs died.
How much of the Earth's finite resources have we used in the last 100 years?
How much did the Native American Indians use in their thousands or millions of years here?
/shrug
I am going to go walk to our stables, watch nine horses run down the hill, then i will feed them, pet my dogs, have a beer and watch the sunset while playing my guitar.
it is a beautiful day
Posts: 377 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
If the economy REALLY tanks, will we change our attitude of "Don' surrender! Stay in Iraq until is a great democracy!"
Posts: 377 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
SOMEONE pays for what you have...and if the #4 at HP listens to you that pretty much explains a lot of issues I have with them.
You missed MY point....or rather, you ignored it.
He can do with his money what he wants, and HIS investments are not the cause of our current problem. He has every right to invest...or not...as you do.
BTW, he HAS created...companies, and jobs. You still haven't produced a single readable line your your "masterpiece" in the 7 years I have been here.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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If you can point to any documented statement that even comes close to predicting why the economy would be in so much trouble now two years ago, maybe you'll get some respect for something besides being passionate.
If, however, you can't...well, usual hot air. I mean, hey...I predict, in five years, we'll have cured cancer!
Should that delightful event happen, am I a skillful prognosticator for having predicted it? I've got, like, a vague wikipedia knowledge of cancer and its treatments (which is another way of knowing squat), so if that does happen, I didn't intelligently predict it. I guessed and was right.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
The markets are always fluctuating. People constantly "predict" that you should sell your stocks. You aren't special. I told my friend to dump all his stocks a couple months back. Just because I was right doesn't mean I knew what I was talking about.
Posts: 1287 | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:If, however, you can't...well, usual hot air. I mean, hey...I predict, in five years, we'll have cured cancer!
It's not an awful guess, though I guess it depends on which kind of cancer, since saying "we're going to cure cancer" means almost nothing by itself as there is no one size fits all solution, and short of Borg nanites to solve all our problems, we're a long way off from one.
But a lot of stuff is coming together, between technological advancements and a fundamental change in the way that cancer research is conducted and shared throughout the medical community. There's a bill in Congress right now that could revolutionize cancer (and medical research in general) research in this country, and might speed us on our way towards tangible life saving results much faster than we otherwise would have gotten to.
But saying "we'll have cured cancer" is a lot like saying "the stock market is headed for a fall" in another way too, in that there are so many varying degrees in which you can claim success short of a total victory, that it's an almost useless assertion.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Oh, based on that criteria, then yeah it's an awful guess. In my mind, a guess is a guess independent of who is making it and what their qualifications are, and thus it can be a great guess that someone lucked upon. I know very little about baseball, and if I were to haved guessed at the start of the season that Tampa Bay was going to win the World Series this year, it turns out it would have been a decent guess as of right now.
But I see your point, and agree, though maybe in a different way. A guess can be good regardless of the person's qualifications, but that doesn't mean I'd give it equal weight. If some guy down the street and the Surgeon General both make the same guess about cancer research, then probably they are both good guesses, but chances are I'm not going to believe the guy from down the street until I hear it from the Surgeon General, he just doesn't carry the same weight.
You can probably ignore all that. It's 4am and I'm getting into extremes of semantics here. I guess my point was, it's not an awful guess because, even though you might not know what you're talking about, you're not wrong. But I'm not saying you should get credit for being right .
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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